


Verbo et Opere

by violetlolitapop



Series: The Secret Lives of Catholic School Boys [4]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Multi, also a slur is used, because a large family had to be made up for all these cousins to exist, gratuitous prayer used, hey backstory how you doin, it took me forever to remember how to pray a rosary, the author strongly suggests you read the beginning author's note, there are a lot of oc, there is mention of roe vs wade and sex work
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-09
Updated: 2017-03-26
Packaged: 2018-09-15 02:52:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 20,338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9215507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/violetlolitapop/pseuds/violetlolitapop
Summary: In which Yakov has always been a bit more practical about human nature and the evolution of the modern age while keeping his faith and wishes his family could learn to do the same.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> YO PLEASE READ THIS:
> 
> if you're here for the sole reason of the Victuuri tag, you're not gonna have a good time here. this is all backstory to this series. victor doesn't show up 'till like a little past the halfway point and yuuri isn't even seen 'till the very end. if ya just wanna read about the boys, you're free to leave i understand. if ya invested in the series and story, go ahead and keep on reading, thanks for doing that.
> 
> alright ya'll are free to make your choice now.
> 
> AND IF YOU CHOOSE TO KEEP READING:
> 
> i didn't know how to tag this, i guess you could say there is an allusion to conversion therapy but it's not really??? like what happens to lena is not seen on screen and apparently Courage isn't like conversion therapy and it's not a camp?? i'm still not totally sure how it works but i know there are like workshops or some shit?? the lecture i got personally about it was that it's promotes chastity against homosexuality through prayer, or some bullshit like that idk. my mom wanted me to do it when i turned 17 and that got me booted out of the house right quick when i refused lmaooo

“All Jesus ever said was to not be a dick! That’s it!”

Yakov is eleven years old when he first hears this statement. It’s also the first time he’s borne witness to seeing his grandfather stand up and reach across the dinner table to slap someone as sharply as he does. His cousin nearly falls out from her seat from the force, and when she removes her own hand from where his has made contact with her cheek, there’s a bright red imprint for the whole family to see.

Elena is four years older than him, and at 15 she is always calling attention to herself. Mostly because of her appearance – already she is tall and slender, with long pale hair and piercing blue eyes – but within the family it’s more to do with her increasingly rebellious behavior. This incident is just one case in the list that’s been growing throughout the year.

The table is silent, not even the younger cousins make a noise and for the longest time there is only the sound of Elena’s ragged breath before she shoots up from her seat violently and runs from the room.

“Lena!” her mother cries and chases after her.

Yakov keeps his mouth shut and his head down, just like the other children at the table. He waits for his grandfather to take back his seat and waits again for more of his family to start picking at their dinner again as a sign for the night to go on as normal.

* * *

“There is something wrong with her.”

“She’s a child, Masha. There is nothing wrong with her.”

“No, Vika, no… there is something wrong with my daughter, as a mother I can sense it. I am right.”

Yakov does not mean to eavesdrop. It’s only that with their apartment being as tiny as it is, the walls are not exactly the thickest, and his Aunt Maria isn’t that quiet of a person to begin with. So, like any other child would when they are too aware of a situation, he puts his pencil aside and forgets his homework for just a short while to listen.

“Do you not remember being that age?” he hears his mother ask. “We were not easy to deal with girls ourselves! I remember when a certain _someone_ was convinced that she was in love with a certain singer that ran a group called _Exotic Illusion_ , and ran off with him for a night and letting everyone think she was dead.”

“I know I was not an easy daughter to raise, and God help me, this is my penance for it. But, Vika, no this is different. For all that I did, I never spoke blasphemy.”

The women go quiet.

“Lenochka? No…”

“It took both me and Matthew by surprise, but she did. Right in our own home, she cursed God and I don’t know what to do!”

His aunt breaks off into a wail that turns into a sob. That does not take Yakov by surprise at all, because again, she has never been a quiet person and that does make her more dramatic than others. For a second, he feels bad for Elena the most, but at the same time he doesn’t understand what is going on with his cousin. They’re the closest distance wise, but the age gap between them doesn’t make conversation easy or a reason to make time for each other outside of family visits. He doesn’t fully understand her problems, and she’s too old to deal with his.

But if he were to be honest, he would definitely say that out of all the cousins, he likes her the best.

“I don’t know when it started exactly,” his aunt says after her outburst. “I thought maybe at Christmas, when she _exploded_ at papa, but when I look so much closer, there was always little things. She’s quit the choir because she said she wanted to focus more on her studies, and I believed her, but she has been skipping classes. She said she needed to find work because college was going to be expensive, and that she would not be able to attend services with us because of that. I believed her, but she still isn’t working. She told me once that she was staying the weekend with her one friend, Natalie, and when I couldn’t reach her on her phone, I called her friend and she wasn’t with her! I don’t know where she goes at night and she locks herself in her room all day, I don’t know what to do Vika!”

Aunt Maria dissolves into tears after that, and Yakov can hear her mother comfort her sister with little _hushes_.

There isn’t anything more to hear after that. Yakov put his headphones on and turns some music on. He goes back to his homework.

* * *

A crucifix is something that Yakov is used to seeing in every room. He thinks that his family might go a bit overboard since all of his friends usually have one or two (either in the living room and/or kitchen), but all the same, he’s used to it. Especially in bedrooms – he has one that was specially blessed after his grandmother’s funeral and his mother explained to him how it would keep him well protected.

It’s a little startling when he looks around Elena’s room and doesn’t see it anywhere. He knows that she had got one from the service too, they both got theirs together. It’s usually the first thing that his eyes are drawn to, but the usual spot above her bed is empty and it’s hanging nowhere else. He thinks of the things that have been said about his cousin, about the things that are _still_ being said about her, and wonders if any of them are true.

But… what would that matter? If Elena has lost her faith… should he not love her more? You’re not supposed to turn anyone away, right?

He’ll think about that later. He was only sent up here to call her down, and right now she isn’t in the room.

“Lena?!”

“Yasha?”

Her voice comes from outside the window that Yakov didn’t even realize was opened. He crosses over to it and sticks his head. Sure enough, Elena is sitting outside on the roof with a lit cigarette in her hand.

“You’re not old enough to smoke,” is the first thing he says and she laughs.

“That’s the last thing I’m worried about,” she says but puts it out and pats at a spot next to her for him.

Yakov climbs out carefully and steps carefully over to where she is. He sits next to her, and it’s quiet. It’s starting to get warmer in the year now, but the tracks of the light rail sail over his Uncle’s home and overshadows where they sit. It makes this spot cooler, and he can’t help but scoot in closer to her for some warmth.

“It’s always a little colder right here,” she tells him. “You get used to it. Just like you get used to the sound the train makes. Just like you get used to a lot of things.”

Yakov doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t know what she’s talking about, really. He just sits with her.

“Who’s down there?” she asks.

“Your mom and dad. My mom and dad. Uncle Feodor, Aunt Anna. Katya and Ivan came with her. Deda is down there, too.”

Elena sighs and leans all the way backwards until she’s lying flat on the roof. To Yakov, it looks like she’s ready to allow herself to roll off the side and onto the pavement.

“Yasha,” she says quietly. “Can I trust you?”

“Yes.”

“I can tell you a secret?”

“Yes. Elena?”

She goes quiet again and Yakov stares at her. He has always known his cousin to be beautiful, but he has not seen her up close like this since that night five months ago, and in that time, she’s grown to look so much older and so much more tired. It dims her, and it reminds him of that day her mother came to see his and he wonders what has happened to her.

But he’s been taught to be seen and not heard, so he does not ask.

“I’m going to Hell.”

He almost doesn’t hear her, she says it so softly. The idea of Hell is something terrifying to any child, and Yakov is no exception. He forgets his manners and goes into a frenzy telling his cousin that she is definitely not going _there_ , but Elena makes him go quiet again by sitting up suddenly and throwing her arm over his shoulder to bring him in close to her.

“I am,” she says. “That’s what she tells me.”

“Who?” he asks before he can stop himself.

This time she doesn’t answer him. They only sit on the rooftop of his uncle’s home and the sound of and the light rail going by almost drowns out his mother’s shout for him from downstairs. He had forgot he was sent up here to get her, but he remembers now. Elena knows too, she lets him go.

“Do I smell like cigarettes?” she asks.

“Not really.”

She picks up the stick she had put out before he came out to sit with her and breaks it in half. She takes the cigarette’s insides and crushes them between her fingers and rubs it on her neck. It’s not a strong smell, but it’s more noticeable.

Elena stands and passes over him like a pro. She’s been on this roof many times and it shows. She pauses though, before she ducks back through her window. She looks over to him one last time.

“Don’t fall in love, Yasha,” she says. “It’ll mess you up.”

She ducks in and she’s gone.

He doesn’t know what goes on downstairs. His mother is waiting for him at the bottom and sends him through the kitchen to sit with his cousin Ivan in the backyard.

* * *

Yakov loves his cousin. For as little as they do interact he probably trusts Elena more than anyone else in this nosy, busy body family.

 _Our Father,_  
_Who art in Heaven_  
_Hallowed be thy name_  
_Thy kingdom come_  
_Thou will be done…_

He prays. For himself. For his parents. For Elena. For her safety. Wherever she is.

 _Hail Mary,_  
_Full of grace_  
_The Lord is with thee_  
_Blessed are thou amongst women_  
_And blessed is thy fruit of thy womb_  
_Jesus_

Elena is gone. That’s all he has heard. He asked once where she was when Katya’s birthday party was happening and the room grew quiet. The adults began to frown, and the children started to question it too now that it’d been pointed out. They got louder and more demanding, and his grandfather silenced them all with a single command.

 _Holy Mary,_  
_Mother of God_  
_Pray for us sinners_  
_Now and at the hour of our death_  
_Amen_

“She is on… a small vacation.”

It’s what his mother told him afterwards.

“Where?” he asked.

“It’s… a sort of retreat. Like the ones the Church has for weekends. You know those.”

“Yeah… When is she coming back?”

She didn’t answer him. Not really.

“When she is ready.”

 _Glory be to the Father,_  
_And to the Son,_  
_And to the Holy Spirit_  
_As it was in the beginning_  
_Is now and ever shall be_  
_World without end_  
_Amen_

No one speaks of her. Her birthday comes and goes. His birthday comes and goes. The family will appear together, and Elena is a ghost that walks among them.

 _Oh my, Jesus_  
_Forgive us our sins_  
_Save us from the fires of Hell_  
_Lead all souls into Heaven_  
_Especially those in most need of your mercy_  
_Amen_

Yakov keeps praying.

* * *

It’s Katya that tells him the truth.

“Aunt Maria found out she was dating a girl.”

That… doesn’t really mean anything to him.

“Okay?”

“So she freaked out,” Katya goes on to say. “I think they sent her to a convent. Or some kind of church retreat where they do workshops? I don’t know.”

“But, why?”

“Because she was dating a girl?” Katya’s tone is starting to get frustrated, like she’s suddenly realizing that she’s talking with a twelve-year-old and not someone closer to her more mature age of seventeen.

“Yeah, you told me that. But I don’t get it, what’s the big deal?”

“We’re not supposed to do that, Yasha.” Now she is frustrated. She speaks to him like he’s a toddler barely able to understand words at all.

“But why?”

“We just aren’t. Go play with Vanechka.”

He doesn’t really want to go play with her brother, but he doesn’t want to be in her company any more either. He doesn’t really like Katya to begin with, and there’s something about this conversation that makes him dislike her more. Before he leaves though, he has one more question.

“How did Aunt Maria find out?”

Katya shrugs. “I told her. I saw her and Natalie kissing and crying in a classroom together. I told her I was going to.”

Yakov leaves without saying anything.

He doesn’t trust Katya at all afterwards. He hasn’t really before, and he never does, not for as long as he lives.

* * *

Yakov vaguely remembers Elena’s friend Natalie. She’s appeared sometimes throughout his life, as far as he knows she was Lena’s best friend… and apparently more. Still, he doesn’t really recognize her when she approaches him. He’s sitting on the porch of his Uncle’s home with his cousin Ivan while their mothers help his Aunt Maria get ready for a mass they’ll attend together.

(They always have, every Sunday evening, but the _whole_ family making a show of going _together_ is new.)

This near random girl is short and tanned, with long black hair that is just a mass of curls and green eyes. She looks nervous and takes a while before she actually speaks.

“Is Elena here?” she asks.

“No,” Ivan says right away. “She’s at camp or something.”

Yakov looks at his cousin. There’s no doubt that Katya told him, and that was a real stupid thing to do since Ivan can’t keep his mouth shut for anything.

“Camp?” the girl asks and she looks like she’s in pain. “What camp?”

“I don’t know,” Ivan says again. “My mom just said she’s going to be gone for a while and we need to encourage and pray for her.”

“Who are you?” Yakov asks her next. “Why are you looking for her?”

“I’m…” the girl trails off. “I’m just a friend.”

“You’re a friend and you didn’t know she was gone?”

“Do you know when she’ll be back?”

Her tone is harder now, and she’s looking only at Yakov. She’s not going to get anything out of his cousin next to him, figured she would ask him now.

“No,” he says, and it’s true.

The girls stares at him for the longest time and then just nods slightly. She looks like she’s about to cry.

“Okay,” she says. “Okay. If you see her soon, can you just tell her that I’m sorry?”

Again, Yakov asks, “Who are you?”

“Why are you here, Natalie?”

They were all so distracted that none of them had even noticed the front door opening. All three mothers are staring down at the scene in front of them and Yakov feels like he’s been doing something he shouldn’t have. He doesn’t turn away from the mothers until he hears the crunching sound of someone taking off in a run. He turns back in time to see the girl – _Natalie_ – run from the house as fast as she can.

“Was that her?” his Aunt Anna whispers.

His Aunt Maria replies, “Yes. That was her.”

“You’re going to need a restraining order, Masha,” his mother tells her.

“And find a new school,” says Aunt Anna.

“If she’s better in time,” says Aunt Maria. “We’ll see.”

The three women usher the two boys up and tells them to hurry up in the car, their fathers are already waiting for them at the church.

It’s the first time Yakov doesn’t pay attention to the readings. He has a lot to think about.

* * *

Two years pass.

* * *

Yakov meets Lilia the first week of his freshman year.

“Put away what you don’t want to be seen!”

She strides right into the boy’s bathroom with her head up high and straight into one of the few stalls they have. It’s only Yakov and another boy in front of the urinals, and they both start shouting at her. She doesn’t pay them any attention.

“The girls are sharing a single stall on this floor and the line is appalling,” she says behind the closed door. “If you have a problem with that, tell someone who cares.”

The other boy says something that Yakov doesn’t catch and storms out after fixing himself right. Yakov doesn’t though. He stands back at the urinal and does what he needs to. Lilia does the same. It’s the most awkward first meeting he’s ever had, but he’s not going to be the one to let that bother him. She’s the one that walked in here.

He finishes his business quickly all the same though, but not quick enough because she comes out the second he’s at the sinks washing his hands.

“You didn’t run away too?” she asks when she takes over the sink next to him.

The way she says it though rubs him wrong. It’s as if she’s talking down to him, and there really is no reason for that.

“You just needed to pee,” he says. “And I needed to pee. We weren’t doing anything different. Just I have to stand.”

“You could probably sit.”

“No, I really can’t. It’s uncomfortable.”

He gives her a look that’s just daring for her to ask him what he means by that. She doesn’t though. She turns off the faucet and gives him the longest look before she walks away.

“You should come join my club after school,” she tells him at the door. “We meet underneath the staircase by the theater.”

“What kind of club is it?”

“Come by and find out. My name is Lilia, by the way.”

She leaves after that. Yakov wonders if it’s a theater club, because that was just way too dramatic.

He does go though.

* * *

It’s not a theater club.

It’s… actually not really much of a club. They’re not anything official. If anything, they’re just a ragtag group of misfits that don’t actually fit in anywhere. Except maybe with each other, and that’s fine with Yakov. All of his friends have gone on to the catholic high school and he’s been by himself since then.

Sometimes they’ll stay under the staircase and have a conversation that starts off with gossip and the turns into something else. Sometimes it gets political, sometimes it’s social commentary, sometimes it’s nonsense, sometimes it’s something, and sometimes it’s nothing at all. He hears things that he has kind of heard before behind the walls of Our Lady by the time he was ready to leave. Words that are whispered just among the kids because there was no telling what the adults would say and they just naturally come to expect the worse.

That’s the only difference, he thinks. The kids here are more open and loud about what they think and come to believe. Other than that though, public school and private school are not that different. At least he doesn’t think so. Yakov’s only experience with private schooling had been the combined elementary and middle school which had been far more affordable and a little more inclusive. Inclusive in the way that it had been a co-ed school, so the mix of boys and girls in a setting is not that different. There was no set uniform either; they were encouraged to wear their school colors, but it had been a strong suggestion and nothing more.

“My mother wanted to send me to Rosary,” Lilia tells after he says this to her several weeks later. “Something about not wanting me to lose a sense of morality or some kind of sorry excuse like that, but I told her that sometimes the girls that go into those schools come out worse than when they went in.”

They’re both at a party hosted by one of the girls in their “club”. There’s a total of seven teens total on the rooftop of an apartment complex where the majority have made their own dance floor with nothing but their own imagination and a portable radio acting as the DJ. Both Lilia and Yakov are off to the side, sitting on the half-wall ledge and nursing their own drinks.

“I bet she didn’t like that,” he says.

“No. But after my sister was sent away because she ended up pregnant, both of my parents seemed to see things a little more my way.”

“Your sister got sent away too, huh?”

Yakov ends up staring down into his drink. It’s just a soda with a few melted ice cubes bobbing, but he finds himself thinking of Elena, and he feels a bit guilty. He hasn’t thought much of his cousin in a while. He hasn’t prayed for her in a while.

“Who got sent away?”

Lilia’s voice brings him out of his thoughts before they can get any sadder, but he still feels his lips tug down in a frown.

“My cousin,” he says. “My cousin, Elena. She got sent away when I was eleven, or twelve. I don’t know where though. That was never something I was able to find out.”

“Why was she sent away?”

The way she asks it, it’s almost like she’s a little afraid to hear the answer. Yakov figures that the way he’s been speaking and his face gives it away, even if he hasn’t said much.

“She… I guess, she was dating a girl. One of her friends.” He sets his drink aside and wipes his hands on his pants. He turns to Lilia and looks her straight in the eye. “My other cousin, she said she found them together in a classroom, and the last time I saw Elena had been at her house where she told me not to fall in love because it ruins everything.”

He laughs a little, and it’s not happy. It’s a small, little scoff of a sound, and he says, “It’s ridiculous. I have been taught my whole life that there is nothing better than to love and be loved by not only God, or his Son, but by family as well, and they just threw her out. And for what? I didn't understand the big deal then, and I don't get it now. And it’s so easy to forget that she was ever here because no one talks about her. When she first left I prayed for her, for her safety, for her happiness, for her to have strength wherever she was, but now… I’ve been forgetting. I got used to not seeing her anymore, and I forgot. I’m just as bad as everyone else.”

He turns away and takes his drink back up. He downs it all in one go and slams it down next to him. He feels himself get mad all over again. He has been, off and on again all this time. He hates that Elena is gone. He hates that it’s his family that has done it. He hates that he _still_ hasn’t said _anything about it–_

“I’m a little surprised,” Lilia says after a long pause. “You’ve always hung around us, and you’ve never hidden the fact of how religious you are… I always expect you to snap at one of us for saying something out of line. Especially with some of us not having any faith at all.”

“I’m pretty sure that would have happened already, if it was going to happen. I already sat through Michelle's lecture on Roe vs Wade, hell, I even helped her with it. And I definitely agree with Rosa's argument on safety for sex workers. And can I just say, if that’s how you feel, why did you even invite me to join all of you in the first place?”

“I didn't think you were as religious as you are,” she shrugs. “That day in the bathroom, I thought you were just another person like the rest of us. Tired of acting like we’re supposed to act, being caught in a world that doesn’t want us to think outside the norm, or find ourselves in unconventional ways.”

“You thought that just because I peed in the same bathroom as you?”

“The other boy left.”

Well… that is true. And actually, thinking about it, Yakov knows he can name a few people that definitely would have had a problem with it, no matter how trivial the situation was. He knows his family would definitely have blown it out of proportion if Lilia had been any of their daughters.

“I’m not as vocal about things as everyone else here,” he confesses. “I know I am... different from my family, in a lot of ways. I still believe in God, just like they all do, I don’t think that much will ever change, but… sometimes I think they all just… I don’t know, lose sight of things? Does that make sense?”

Lilia doesn’t say anything, so he goes on.

“The readings I hear, and the conversation my family has afterwards, it feels like two different services were attended. I feel like most of the time, they forget the actual teachings of Christ and use gospels to just push on their own beliefs. I feel like my family is afraid of change and use what we were raised with as a means to keep them from happening. I feel like… I’m the only one who understands the differences between the actual word of Christ, and what was created by men who wanted to keep themselves above others and to keep that happening.”

He shrugs helplessly. “Of course, I can’t say any of that. My cousins might just brush me off and tell me whatever, but the grown-ups… I don’t know what they would do. I get so sick of it sometimes…”

“Maybe you should say it,” she tells him, and she looks dead serious.

“What?”

“Like I said, Yakov, we’re all trying to find our way through something that doesn’t want us thinking against it. Maybe it’s time for you to start thinking about what kind of grown-up you’re going to be.”

She slides off the ledge and hits the pavement with a soft thud. She doesn’t look back when she walks away to join the others.

He might be falling in love with her.

* * *

She’s right though.

He’s had enough.

He’s not a child anymore.

He deserves to be heard.

* * *

“I understand the prayer to end abortion, but I feel like it should be modified.”

“Yasha!”

“Why not pray for _safe_ and _wanted_ pregnancies instead? Why attack a means that is going to happen if a woman is determined to seek what she needs?

“A woman does not _need_ an abortion, Yasha,” his father says. His neck is starting to turn red, he is holding back his anger. “Any woman who claims as much is a sinner and can only reclaim redemption through the child God has gifted her.”

Yakov stares at him, and doesn’t even hesitate to say, “That is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.”

“Yasha!” his mother shrieks. “Room! Go to your room, now!”

She’s probably saved him from whatever might have been unleashed through his father’s wrath, but he doesn’t like it all the same. He does as he’s told though. He’ll let it end for the night, but it won’t stop here.

He knows what kind of grown-up he wants to be.

* * *

“Heard you’re the new rebel of the family.”

Yakov feels like he’s leaning away from disliking Katya, to straight hating her.

Which he would feel more guilty about, if she didn’t make it so easy.

“That’s what they say,” he says.

She does this long dramatic sigh that makes him roll his eyes. “I guess as long as you don’t come out saying you’re a homo too, it should be fine.”

He really hates her.

“Even if I were to ever do that,” he says with a low, steady voice, “Not only would this family lose a second chance in understanding the teachings of acceptance and compassion, but I would be glad to know that even if I were to lose the love of everyone I’ve grown with, I still have the love of Christ himself.”

He walks away after that. She doesn’t say anything, and he doesn’t want to stick around to see if she will.

* * *

He’s almost seventeen when Elena comes back.

She does not come back alone.


	2. Chapter 2

His name is Richard.

“He’s not a Russian,” his Aunt Anna says. “But at least he is a _he_.”

She laughs loudly at her own joke, but her sisters don’t find it as amusing as she does. They only give her a polite little laugh as they keep working in the kitchen. Yakov has no doubt now that this is where Katya gets it from. She is just as awful as her mother. God, help them all…

He doesn’t stay long in the kitchen. He only meant to clear away the rest of the table to help his mother, and the conversation he comes into the middle of is not one that he thinks he can listen to without saying something that will upset his aunts. Yakov leaves after handing off the last of the dishes and heads back into the living room.

He doesn’t see Elena anywhere, but he does see her… fiancé.

Yakov doesn’t know what to think of this situation. When being introduced to this man with the rest of his family, he couldn’t get a _real_ impression of him. He’s handsome, he can say that much. An apparent kind person, and is well-mannered. But he hasn’t heard about his family, where they met, how long they’ve been _dating_ … In his opinion, it’s as if Elena had been sent away, stayed away for some five years, and then came back with a random man she intends to marry.

And if the size of the ring on her finger means anything, they really do intend to marry…

“I’m kind of proud of her.”

The urge to roll his eyes is strong, but somehow Yakov resists and he deserves a medal for it.

Katya is present, because of course she is, and since she already knows Yakov’s opinion on her (and what an Easter that was) it’s most likely that she’s come by him specifically to be as annoying as possible. He knows she wants him to ask her why she is proud. He’s not going to give her the satisfaction.

“Hm.”

He doesn’t even have to look at her to know her fake smile is twitching.

“Lyosha isn’t even as handsome as he is,” she goes on to say. “I knew Lenochka would come through!”

“Where is Lena?” he asks.

“Out back with Nadia. But really, Yasha, what do you think of Richard?”

“Haven’t talked to him much,” is what he answers her with and leaves. His mother might have disapproved with how rude he’s being to his older cousin, but in his defense this is probably the most civil exchange they’ve had in a long while.

He does find Elena in the backyard with her sister. Yakov is nowhere close to Nadia as far as their relationship goes, but he supposes that her being the eldest out of all of them would do that. He hasn’t spoken to her since before she left to study in Moscow. The closer he gets to the pair, the more he hears their conversation. They’re speaking about gowns for the bridal party and what colors Elena should choose.

“Red and white are pretty standard though, aren’t they?” she asks.

“Those were the colors I chose for my wedding,” says Nadia and Elena laughs.

“Exactly. Maybe we can do our favorite colors. I do like purple.”

“What’s Richards favorite color?”

Elena pauses. “Green?”

“That is an awful combination!”

They both end up laughing. Yakov, for some reason, doesn’t feel like he is allowed to intrude on this moment. He isn’t even entirely sure what he wanted to do once he did find Elena. He had wanted to see her, yes. He had wanted to ask if what she said to her mother is true and she is now happy, yes. He wanted to know how she had been all these years they were apart and learn about how she had found someone to fall in love with and marry, yes…. But… Maybe not now…

He turns and walks back into the house.

Maybe now is not the right time.

 

* * *

 

 

“Is she really happy?”

Yakov shrugs.

“I don’t know. I’ve heard her say she is. She acts like she is. If you don’t look into it too deep, then I guess she is. Compared to what she was like… the last time I saw her.”

Lilia leans back in her seat. They’re both supposed to be working on their individual projects for their Economics class, but they both have zero interest in the subject and have just decided to lounge around in Lilia’s bedroom. Both of her parents are gone for the weekend; her mother’s gone to visit her sister and her father taking the opportunity to spend time with his mistress. Or so she says.

“You haven’t asked her?” she asks. “Like, really asked her?”

“I want to,” he confesses. “But I haven’t been able to catch her alone to ask her.”

“Why not just ask her in front of everyone?”

“She won’t do that. I just know she won't. Maybe before, but definitely not now. She won’t be honest if I call her out like that in front of everyone, she just won’t.”

“Damn… I can’t even imagine being that way. From what you told me about her before, I figured she’d be much more stubborn, or something.”

“I don’t know what happened to her though,” says Yakov. “I don’t know what she went through or what even happened. I don’t know and… I don’t think she’ll ever tell me. Even when we are alone.”

“Jesus Christ.”

“Lord’s name.”

“Sorry.”

They go quiet. There isn’t much more to say on the subject with as little information as they have, and really what can either of them even begin to imagine? They don’t have any clue at all,  and as if she knows this particular conversation has come to a dead end, Lilia stands up from her seat.

“Wanna go out and get some dinner?”

“Someone might see us and ask if we’re dating again.”

It’s a joke; just a quick reference to the one time over their summer break when they had been spotted together by people outside of their group and instantly interrogated. He still doesn’t understand why, but either way Lilia came out of the situation grumbling. He figures enough time has passed that they can laugh at it now. Except, she’s not laughing.

“So?” she asks and she sounds upset.

“You got mad last time,” he reminds her.

“That’s because I asked you if you minded and you said you didn’t care.”

Silence.

“Did.. Did you want me to care?”

“Do you?”

Yakov stares at her. She looks at him in the same way she had years ago, when they first met and a warm feeling begins to spread throughout his chest as things suddenly start clicking into place. He was beginning to think that the growing attraction towards her would forever be one-sided, and it’s good to know that it could have mutual for a while now… Still… There is no way this is going to work out… He can just feel it. They won’t have a happily ever after.

But at the same time, why not?

“Do you want get dinner with me?”

People think that Lilia is the type of person that has been hardened over the years and never smiles, but it’s not true. Not entirely. No, it’s not often that she will smile large or laugh loudly, but she does smile. The one she gives him is just a little grander than normal, and he would tease her about it if he wasn’t sure she would literally bite his head off.

“Let’s go,” she says, and that’s it.

He follows after. They eat out at a pizza place nearby. Some kids from school see them. They go back to her place. He stays the night.

(Nothing happens, but he still lies about where he was when he goes home. As a boy, he knows he gets more leniency, but still… it would be weird…)

 

* * *

 

 

Yakov never does get the chance to speak with his cousin privately.

Between planning for this wedding and being fawned over by every woman in the family it’s near impossible to find her alone. They speak, of course they do, but it’s different than before.

She asks him about school, and he can understand that as a normal icebreaker. She asks him about friends, he tells her about the few he has. She then asks him about any girlfriends, which he’s come to expect from anyone else but for some reason it just seems wrong for her to show the same teasing smile the others wear and to use that tone of voice. The same one that is both sly and carries anticipation. This is also something that he’s heard as soon as he was no longer a child, and there’s never been any shame in either saying that no, he doesn’t have a girlfriend or just outright mentioning Lilia, it’s just…

He can’t explain it.

He can’t explain this conflicting image of a distressed Elena telling him not to fall in love, to this Elena smiling with his other cousins and aunts that is now teasing him once Ivan mentions Lilia’s name that he just can’t seem to erase from his mind.

He wants to know what happened. He wants to know where she went, and what she did. Or what someone could have _done_ to make this happen. To make her behave the way she is now.

“Lena, can I talk to-?”

“Yasha,” his Aunt Maria interrupts him and places her hand on his shoulder. “You and Vanechka should go see if your uncles need any help outside.”

“Help with what?” Ivan asks. “My dad doesn’t even let me sit in that car.”

“You should spend more time with your father anyway,” she says. “You too, Yasha, you’re both growing up so fast, enjoy this time!”

She ushers them out without either of them completely agreeing to leaving. It’s almost ridiculous to think that the reason they are not left alone is intentional, but sometimes he feels like that is exactly what is happening.

 

* * *

 

 

“Mama.”

He’s not going to be able to speak with Elena. No one is going to let that happen.

“Where did Lena go for so many years?”

He goes to the one person he thinks he could speak to.

“Lenochka? What do you mean?”

He hopes anyway.

His father is not home. Yakov has made sure to not speak about this around him. He’s noticed over the years that his mother is more open without him around. He doesn’t think it’s anything to be considered bad, maybe just a consequence of her and her sisters being taught to be submissive to their husbands (he had a few things to say about that when that story was told) and she allows his father to control the conversations. Right now, she is crocheting, with Yakov sitting next to her and holding her yarn between his hands to keep it untangled. It couldn’t be a more unassuming setting for his to question her, but she doesn’t make it easy.

“When I was little, Lena was sent away. You told me that she went to a retreat and would come back when she was better, but you never told me why she was actually gone. She’s been back for a while, and she isn’t like the person I knew then.”

“People grow up, Yasha,” she says. “No one is the person they are when they are young when they get older. Maybe the reason she seems so different is because you were not able to see her change.”

“Well, yes. Because again, she was sent away. I can’t believe that whatever happened to her didn’t have some kind of hand in this.”

“Nothing happened to her.”

“I…. I don’t know if I can believe that.”

“Where is your faith, child?”

“My faith is in trying to understand why this happened so that I may help others in case they need help.”

She stares at him for the longest time before she puts her knitting down and he follows her lead by lowering his own hands.

“Yakov, your cousin was caught kissing with another girl.” She pauses to cross herself and Yakov closes his eyes to keep from rolling them in her presence. “Your Aunt Maria was… upset. She felt as though, the temptation of the girl who led your cousin to do these things was causing her to act out and stray from God’s path.”

“I’m sorry, ‘the temptation of the girl’?”

“Yasha, please.”

“Sorry.”

“Listen…”

She trails off and looks at her own son with a sense of desperation for him to understand. Yakov doesn’t know what to expect, but he waits for her to speak.

“This is my own personal belief,” she says finally. “I do not feel as if there was a real reason to send her away like my sister did. These girls, it happens sometimes in schools like that. But they’re just phases, they don’t last. But Elena was beginning to stray from God’s path, even I could see that, and maybe your Aunt Maria could have stopped that from happening by… I don’t know, actually talking to her daughter, but… In the end, Lenochka was sent away with your Uncle Feodor and his family and they watched over her as she lived on a sort of retreat where she finished her schooling and also attended… I would call them like a sort of after school program that focused on prayer and a lot of self-reflection to help her find God’s light again.”

He stares at her, his mouth agape.

“That… sounds…”

It sounds like the whispers he hears. It sounds like the fearful confessions that are made in the small groups of those it affects to one another when things go wrong for them.

It sounds like the kind of place that a person enters and either comes out as someone different or not at all.

“It’s exactly like a church summer camp” his mother picks up again. It’s obvious that she “It’s… a little stricter, and it’s like relearning the Church’s teachings. Especially for more serious cases.”

“Serious cases?”

“Yes. I suppose… for people who really do believe to be attracted to.. well, to the same sex. They are the ones that are sent there. To receive treatment. That was why your aunt sent her. Your uncle was the one to tell her about it.”

He can never look at his family the same way again. None of them.

“What?!”

“Yasha-”

“No, wait, I’m sorry but.. The way you say this, sounds like you don’t believe people could actually _be_ gay.”

There haven’t been many in his life, but because of the group of people that have come to accept him as one of their own - even though many do not do the same for them - he does know how terrible this line of thinking is. He remembers lunch hours filled with tears as fears are realized and someone needs a new home, or of how secrets must be kept, of side glances his direction because no one knew if he could be trusted until both him _and_ Lilia could convince others that he is not like that. How much easier it was to all be friends when that was understood, and the quiet coming out of the little freshman that found them under the stairwell when she had entered school to _him personally_ …

That one gripped him the most, he thinks. There is a lot of trust there…

“It’s nature,” his mother begins. “Mankind is weak by nature, and it’s easy-”

“No.”

“Yasha.”

“No. I can’t believe I’m hearing this! It happens! Sometimes, people just aren’t straight, it happens!”

His mother ends up sighing and falling back deeper into her seat.

“This is why I didn’t want you to go to public school,” she says.

Yakov’s hands are shaking. There are so many things he wants to shout, but for all that she says, he still loves his mother. He can’t be in the same room as her right now though. He just can’t. The yarn slips out from his hands and lands in a clump on the floor. He bolts right up and his mother reaches out to grab at his hand, but he shakes her off.

“I’m sorry,” he grits out. “I’m sorry, I just- I need to pray, right now.”

He storms out of the room and towards his bedroom. His mother shouts after him.

“Yakov, please don’t ruin Lena’s progress!” she calls out. “Please, she has come so far!”

He slams his door and grabs his rosary. He needs to calm down and he wasn’t lying, prayer is the only way he’s ever been able to keep his temper in check.

Yakov prays until he comes to the third mystery, and he suddenly stops.

Something happens in this moment. There is something about this meditation that grips at him. Today is a day reserved for the Sorrowful Mysteries, so maybe that has something to do with it, it could fit the mood. That can’t be all though, because it feels like something _more_. It’s like the feeling of an epiphany – a sudden wash of a realization and relief while there is a shallow clench inside his chest – but he isn’t exactly sure what it’s for.

He decides he’ll reflect on it more afterwards, for the time being though, he picks up where he’s left off and finishes. He feels immensely better afterwards.

 

* * *

 

 

The closer it gets to graduation, the more Yakov needs to consider what he is going to do. He doesn’t really have a plan. He’s been accepted to nearly every single one of the school’s he’s applied to and made it simpler by sticking to the one closest to home. Any further than that though…

“I think I want to be a teacher,” he says.

He's heard a lot about _callings_. He’s heard many times from those that he knows are truly devout have felt this longing since they were young and simply _knew_ their place was in serving God. He doesn’t know if the pull he feels when he thinks about his future is the same kind of yearning they describe, but he does feel something and the idea of teaching just seems _right_.

“And teach what though?” Lilia asks him.

He shrugs. “Not Economics.”

That gets a laugh out of her and he smiles in return. He enjoys the moments they have with each other like this. He knows that soon there won’t be anymore. He doesn’t know how many more times he’ll be able to share her bedroom, her own personal space, like this with her. He’ll take what he can.

“Maybe a history teacher,” he says. “Or even a theology teacher. Maybe I can clear up some bullshit.”

“You’d be the man to do it. I doubt you could do that in a public school though.”

“No… I’d probably have to teach at a college level. Or a private school. Maybe I can make my mother happy and finally go to St. Agatha’s.”

“If you had done that though, we wouldn’t have met.”

“No… No, we wouldn’t have.”

His relationship with Lilia is going to be the highlight of his youth. He doesn’t regret what they have. Sometimes he looks at her when she isn’t paying attention (or when he _thinks_ she isn’t paying attention) and wonders what it would be like if they could keep what they have, get married, have a family, grow old… It’s a nuclear family nightmare, that’s how she would put it. Though, he knows she’s not the kind of woman that will allow herself to be kept and tethered.

And to be honest, he’s pretty sure he’s not the kind of man that would want that either.

“I applied.”

Yakov is snapped out of his thoughts. He looks to Lilia, who is watching him in turn, and it’s only after a few seconds that she explains.

“To the school in New York,” she says. “I sent in an audition tape.”

“That’s great!” He means it. “When did you send it in?”

“Wednesday. Madame Levine helped me film it.”

“Good, you’re her best student… Are you nervous about it?”

“No, not really,” she says, but she’s looking away now. She’s lying.

“You don’t have a reason to be. Again, you are her best student.”

“Flatterer.”

“Never. I only tell it how it is.”

She laughs lightly at that. It gets rid of some of the worry that she had been showing on her face, but something else settles when she stops. It’s nothing terrible, but something is still bothering her.

“What’s wrong?” he asks.

“It’s just, my mom doesn’t like it,” she says. “She doesn’t think there’s anything worthwhile to dancing. She thinks I need to go to a real college and find someone to marry.”

“Why… Why would you pay to go to a school to meet someone to marry?”

Lilia shrugs. “I think that’s how she met my father. He doesn’t like it either. He says there’s nothing worth investing, and I’m going to need to be serious about having a real job, but I don’t care. I want this, Yasha. I want this so much. I would like for them to be supportive of me, but if they can’t, then I’ll do it without them.”

Part of the reason Yakov finds that he’s fallen in love with her is because there is something that smolders inside of her. People tend to think that Lilia already carries a fire within her and it’s the source of all of her passionate determination to fight for the things she wants as much as she does. He doesn’t think that’s true though. Yakov thinks that the fire hasn’t been lit yet, not quite. When she leaves, because she will, that’s when it will happen. That is what’s going to catapult her through the years and make her great.

He wishes he could be a part of that.

She takes his hand and brings him out of his thoughts again. She looks at him a little oddly, and for a second he things that she’s looking for some kind of affirmation and has no problem giving that to her.

“You’re getting in,” he says.

“I know,” she says. “But... you know, they say that in New York you can be a new man.”

Oh.

“I believe it... But, I also believe you don't need to be a new man to be a good man.”

Her chin lifts up and he can practically feel her sigh deeply. She doesn’t say anything though. She gives his hand a tight squeeze and then leans in to kiss him.

(This time something does happen, and he most definitely lies about where he was that night.)

 

* * *

 

 

“Yasha! I feel like I haven’t seen you in forever!”

Elena is married in the Spring.  It’s a good thing, her mother has been saying in the weeks leading up to the date. Spring is the season of the Resurrection and that means new beginnings. They wait until after Easter, of course, because there is no possible way for them to celebrate properly while fasting. But in any case, everyone seems to be enjoying themselves. The bride most of all.

“Come dance with me,” she tells him and takes his hand without even waiting for his answer.

She takes him to the edge of the dance floor and puts his hand on her waist before taking his other into her own. He ends up taking the lead out of habit and they start to follow the movements of the other dancers around the floor. He vaguely hears their other cousins call out to them, and to be honest he has a vague sense of his surroundings because he is entirely too focused on Elena.

She’s 23 now, dressed in a gown that has been re-purposed for many of the women in the family for who knows how many years. It’s held up well, but the color is no longer as white as it has once been, and it’s been colored to a more ivory shade to help hide the aging. Elena still looks beautiful in it all the same. Her hair is longer and piled into a mass of ringlets on her head, the kohl around her eyes bring out how blue they are and make them sharper, her lips are painted red and that makes her skin paler.

Her smile is large and bright. She’s laughing so much. She looks happy.

He asks her. He finally asks her if she really is.

Her smiles dims. She looks at him, confused for a minute, and then smiles again. This time it's smaller and doesn't quite reach her eyes.

“Of course!” she laughs. “This is the happiest day of my life!”

They speed up after that. When it’s over, she’s spun away from him and into the arms of her now-husband. He dips her in for a kiss and there’s more cheering.

Yakov doesn’t join in.

“What’s wrong with you?”

Ivan is suddenly next to him. He’s sipping out of one of the punch glasses with what Yakov doesn’t think is punch at all.

“None of this feels off to you?” Yakov asks him.

“No,” Ivan says with a shrug. “You’re so weird, Yakov. It’s just a wedding. And you better start lookin’ like you’re havin’ fun otherwise I’m gonna have to hear my mom go off about how weird you are.”

“No offense, but I don’t like your mom.”

Ivan scoffs. “Nobody does. But, I dunno, we just kinda deal with it, don’t we? Just do what we gotta…”

Yakov takes in all of Ivan; he’s sixteen, doesn’t have any real interest in anything, always scrawny from forgetting his meals, and if he had a say he would probably sleep for eighteen hours a day. Today he’s stuffed into an ill-fitting tux and the bags under his eyes look heavier than ever.

“Vanya,” says Yakov. “Do you ever think about what kind of grown-up you want to be?”

“It’s not like you get to choose,” he says, and that’s that. “Hey, how come you didn’t bring Lilia to this thing?”

“She’s not really the type to go to weddings. Doesn’t like them much.”

“Weird. All girls like this kind of stuff. You two are made for each other.”

Ivan pushes the glass into Yakov’s hand as a gift and heads off to the dancefloor. Yakov doesn’t drink from it, but he does watch his cousin look over the girls that are not related to them and hold out his arm in invitation to one that he must think is the most attractive. She takes it and they both join the party. Neither one looks like they enjoy it much.

But they have too, huh?

 

* * *

 

 

Yakov finds himself in the cathedral more and more. He stops by before going home after school, he’ll stop by before walking over to Lilia’s. He’ll stop by instead of heading to the library to do his homework in one of the pews. There’s something calming about the atmosphere that he enjoys; in the familiarity of the strong scents and dull echoes of small noises throughout the building. It feels more like home than his own home, and that's something he's been thinking about a lot lately.

Today he’s been planning on doing some of his reading for English before heading home, but his attention is called out to the small field behind the church that connects to the elementary and public school.

It’s a group of altar boys that he’s learned to recognize by face even if he doesn’t know their names. They’re all shouting and cheering, and in between their bodies, Yakov can see two other boys rolling around on the floor trying to land a fist on one another.

“Hey!” he calls out and drops his bag while running over. “Hey, break it up!”

He pushes through the crowd of kids and grabs at the backs of those on the ground.

“I said stop it!” he shouts and practically rips the two of them apart. “The hell is the matter with you?!”

The two boys are breathing heavily but neither one of them answers.

“If you don’t want to talk to me, we can go straight to Father McCarthy,” he tells him. “I don’t have a problem dragging both of you to his office.”

“Nothin’ happened,” says one boy.

“He called my brother a fag,” the other says at the same time.

“That’s cos he is!” the first boy shouts again. “And you’re gonna grow up to be just like ‘im!”

“I am not!”

“Are too!”

“Enough!” Yakov shouts loud enough for it to ring out clear across the field. He lets go of the second boy. “Go home. I’m taking this one to the Father.”

“What?!”

“Shut up," he tells the first boy. "Now are you gonna walk it, or do I have to drag you? Because I don’t have a problem with that either.”

“You ain’t no one to tell me anything!” the boy shouts and Yakov starts to pull him back towards the church despite his screaming.

He does walk, eventually. The other kids leave. Yakov goes back for his belongings after telling the Father what he’s seen and then goes home. He doesn’t think he can handle being near the church just now.

 

* * *

 

 

“Children are cruel.”

It’s all his mother says when he repeats what he’s seen. It’s not good enough.

“But where do they learn it from?” he near demands and doesn’t bother to hide how angry he is. “They’re influenced, that’s how it goes. So where do they learn it from?”

“School. Television. Movies. Music.”

“Family?”

His mother looks at him oddly. “What do you mean?”

“If a child is behaving a certain way, isn’t it because of something that is happening at home?”

“Maybe,” she shrugs. “But I think you’re looking too deeply into something that isn’t there. Some children are just that, children. Boys especially. That’s just how it is.”

She leaves him to start dinner, doesn’t even see the face he pulls, but he still has the last word.

“No.”

 

* * *

 

 

Lilia is accepted to her school, just like Yakov knew would happen.

Graduation comes and goes.

He sees Lilia off before she’s driven to the airport.

They don’t kiss goodbye.

But they do say goodbye.

They both know what this is, and they both aren't the kind of people to pretend that it's not ending here.

“See you at the reunion,” she says.

“You won’t go to that,” he tells her.

“You’re right. But neither will you.”

“True.”

She gives him one last smile and they part their ways.

 

* * *

 

Elena and her husband finally move out from her father’s house and they purchase their own little one.

He goes to the housewarming party with his parents.

His cousin is smiling.

The family is smiling.

There is something about this that just doesn’t settle right with him. It just can’t. It feels like a play act that has a script that’s been kept secret from him and he isn’t able to fit in just right. He doesn’t know the words, and he doesn’t even know if there’s a chance for him to even be a real player.

He ends up sitting next to Ivan at the dinner table and begins to realize that he isn’t a real player. He’s been casted in the background along with someone else who is brushed aside and not taken seriously.  It’s not that startling of a revelation, but it’s not one that he enjoys.

“Yasha just started his classes not too long ago,” he hears his mother brag.

“Really?” he hears his Aunt Anna say. “Vanechka is looking into some top name schools too, we’re going to be filling out the applications soon as a family. To make sure he picks the best option.”

“What are you going to be Ivan?”

Yakov picks at his food while he sees Ivan shrug out of the corner of his eye. He doesn’t bother listening to the conversation because he already knows how it’ll go. Ivan won’t answer any of their questions clearly. He doesn’t know what he’s going to do, Yakov already heard his sister complain about it to her husband, he doesn’t need to hear it again.

He really should have been paying attention though because it’s not until he’s nudged that he realizes that his own name was being called. The table’s attention is on him, and he soon figures out that Elena had been calling his name.

“I’m sorry, what?” he asks.

“I said,” she says with a small smile, “what are you going to be?”

Yakov looks at her. To his mother. His father. The family.

“I want to become ordained. I want to be a priest.”

He says it without thinking much, but the second the words leave his mouth he knows.

Now he knows.

This is what they meant.

This is what they all meant.

This is what they all felt.

This sudden rush of calm ripples through him and his chest is lighter. He didn’t even realize that there may have been something gripping at him, but there had been, and now it’s gone.

He doesn’t even get to revel in this moment, however, because the whole family is now on him. Each one with their own stream of questions they want answers for, and he finds just like that he is no longer kept in the background.

 

* * *

 

 

Two years pass. Yakov commits to his studies and to the long road ahead of him. It’s a relatively peaceful time that involves the usual. Cousins grow up and move on. Another wedding, another engagement, his aunts and uncles are becoming grandparents. At one point his mother jokes with his father that they should have had more children because they will not know that feeling, but his father quiets her with telling her how they must carry this sacrifice for the sake of pride in their child.

Yakov reminds him that it’s not really a sacrifice if it’s in the name of pride. Which is a mortal sin.

(He’s actually proud of himself in finally having a position over his father so that he may have the last word with him, but he’ll confess to it later. He’s still just a man, to be of the cloth or not, he’s not perfect.)

(He wishes others he’s met along the way would recognize that as well, but that’s something to deal with another time.)

 

* * *

 

 

In this time, Elena is happy… But the peace ends when that is no longer true.

Elena calls him before anyone else, he is sure.

She’s crying and it’s a little hard to decipher through her sobs, but she does calm down enough to tell him something.

Her husband has left, for reasons she is unable to say. He is not coming back, and she is pregnant.

“Lena,” he tries to comfort her over the phone, but her sobbing continues. “Lena… Lena!... Lenochka, listen to me!”

She reigns herself in, soon her cries become little whimpers and she’s sniffling on her end.

“Yasha?”

“Lenochka,” he sighs. “Listen to me. You’re going to be okay.”

“I did everything right though,” she says. Her voice is rough and it hitches randomly, but he is still able to hear her clearly. “I did everything right-”

“I’m going to come over, is that okay?”

She pauses. “The house is a mess.”

“That’s not important,” he says. “I want you to be okay, do you need someone over?”

She pauses again.

“Please, come over.”

So, he does.

It takes a long time for her to have a smile on her face again.

 

* * *

 

 

Victor is born on Christmas and Elena is not happy.

She is ecstatic.

“I feel like God has forgiven me,” she tells him in the hospital.

“Why would God need to forgive you?” he can’t help but ask.

“I have sinned so much in my life,” she confesses. “So much, Yasha. I thought by coming back to His path I would be forgiven so easily and I was stupid to think that.”

Yakov doesn’t say anything to that, he just lets her keep talking.

“That’s why there was so many problems. That’s why Richard didn’t stay. It’s going to be hard on us for awhile, I can’t keep depending on my mom and I know she’s not going to live with me forever, but I think this is a good sign.”

The small bundle in her arms does not wake up as she brings him closer to her to hold.

“My son and His share the same birthday,” she says. “That has to be a good sign.”

Well, he thinks, whatever helps her get through this.

Yakov put his hand on her shoulder and Elena leans into the comforting touch. Victor starts to move around in his blanket, he starts to wake up. His eyes have not opened completely, and his face is still squished, but Elena coos over him like he’s the most beautiful being in the world.

Yakov prays that this child will help her. He prays that they will find their happiness together.

 

* * *

 

 

Again, peace settles over the family.

It begins as something fragile, no one wants to disturb anything and have it break again. Yakov is surprised that even Katya has not made scathing remarks behind Elena’s back over Richard’s abandonment with not only his wife but now also his son, but he supposes even someone like her realizes how terrible that would be.

Whatever her reason, he’s grateful for her silence.

Elena takes back her maiden name. She gives it to Victor. She still lives in her home even after her mother leaves her on her own.

The years start turning.

 

* * *

 

 

He recognizes her.

He’s sweeping up the layer of dust from the entrance lobby, the doors to the church are kept wide open so Yakov is able to push everything out the door to make the job go by faster, and that’s when he hears the soft click of heels stop right in front of him.

Yakov looks up to see a short-framed woman, she’s tanned with curly hair pulled back as neat as possible and glasses that frame a pair of bright green eyes. She looks nervous, but she greets him and he greets her back. She’s soon joined by another woman – one with a darker complexion and long braids pulled back in a similar fashion – that stands off a little behind. They’re both dressed professionally, and give him the feeling that they are a little afraid the longer they stand outside.

“Can I help you?” he asks, and if anything, they both seem to grow tenser.

“Yes,” the first woman says a little too harshly. “I mean, I’m sorry. I- We are moving back into the city and I was looking at churches. To attend. For services.”

“Well, this a church,” he says. “And we do services. All are allowed to attend.”

“All?” the other woman asks, like she doesn’t completely believe it.

“Of course,” he says. “Anyone who wishes to find sanctuary in God is welcomed here.”

The first woman smiles at him. “Thank you.”

She doesn’t say much more than that, but she doesn’t need two. He doesn’t know their story, but he tries to be understanding all the same. It’s more or less obvious that they have some kind of history with attending church services.

“My name is Yakov Feltsman,” he says and extends a hand. “I’m in the process of becoming a priest here, so when I say that all are allowed and welcomed, I do mean it. I don’t believe in excluding anyone for any reason.”

The first woman takes his hand gives it a firm shake. “Natalie Vargas. This is my wife Raquel.”

The other woman – Raquel – doesn’t take his hand, but she does give him a nod to acknowledge him and it gives him pause for thought.

Natalie…

A common name that sounds so familiar...

Does he know this person?

His thoughts must show on his face because they both suddenly step back.

“Is there a problem now?” Raquel asks, and her tone is defensive.

“No, no,” Yakov rushes to tell them. “I just… thought you seemed familiar.”

He says this directly to Natalie, so that there’s no confusion as to who he means, and she looks at him carefully before confessing that she has lived in this area before going off to school. They had no intention of returning to this city in particular, but her wife has been transferred to a new department here. Other than that, she tells him that she went to an all-girls school, Rosary to be more specific. So, they couldn’t have been classmates...

Rosary…

Natalie…

The girl.

He remembers her now. Remembers seeing her in front of Elena’s home back when he was still a child. Remembers her trying to find his cousin and running off when his aunts showed up.

“Did you know a girl,” he begins carefully, “named Elena Nikiforov?”

Her eyes widen up in surprise. She does know that name, there’s no mistaking that.

“We… went to school together,” she says, but she doesn’t say it fondly. Her tone is a little guarded, and Yakov can’t really blame her considering what a complicated relationship that must have been.

“She’s my cousin,” he tells her and he tries to put on a friendly smile. “I think we might have met in front of her house. I was still a child, maybe only eleven or twelve.”

She stares at him then, and then she nods. “You were one of the boys outside.”

“That’s right.”

“How… how is she? Is she…?”

“Well, she’s… doing well. She was married for awhile, but now she’s divorced. She has a son now, his name is Victor.”

This time Natalie smiles at him. “Well, it sounds like… she’s doing well.”

“Yes. I’m sure that… if you decide to attend service here, you’d be able to see her again.”

“Oh… Oh, yes… Maybe…”

It gets awkward after that. Neither one knows where to go from there, and to be honest Yakov isn’t sure just how long they would be standing there if her wife hadn’t grabbed at her hand to shake her out of whatever thoughts seem to be going through her mind.

Natalie thanks him, and he tells her again that they’re both welcomed here. They both thank him for that and then walk off.

He doesn’t know if they’ll come back.

They probably won’t.

 

* * *

 

 

It’s nearly a week later that he even mentions it.

“Do you remember Natalie?”

Elena does not answer him. She keeps washing dishes. Yakov sits at her table and waits for another moment before he calls out for her.

“Lenochka?”

“Hm?”

“Did you hear me?”

“I’m sorry, Yasha. It’s all the water, you know. What did you say?”

“I said, do you remember Natalie? I think she was your friend in high school. Before you left.”

Some glasses rattle together when they are put in the dish rack.

“I think so,” she says simply.

“I saw her today.”

“Oh?”

“I wasn’t sure how close you two were, or if you still kept in contact, but she did remember you… She’s married now.”

Elena pauses. Yakov is unable to see her face from where he sits, but he is able to see her shoulders tense and then droop down. She continues with the dishes.

“That’s good!” she says, and sounds like she’s actually happy to hear the news. “I hope she has a happy life now.”

“Seems like it. They both came by the church. She was looking to return to the congregation after moving back into the city. Her wife was transferred into a department here, and they might be buying a house near the church.”

Elena rinses off the last of the dishes and dries her hands quickly. She turns to face Yakov and there’s a smile plastered on her face that looks a lot like the one she wore on her wedding day.

“Excuse me,” she says. “I just need.. Restroom. I’ll be right back.”

She walks quickly towards the exit, faster than he’s ever seen her move before and at first he had only wanted to see what kind of reaction he could get from her, but maybe he’s made a mistake.

“Lenochka?”

She pauses. Her hands are shaking, but she doesn’t turn to face him.

“You remind me of your mother when you call me that,” she says. “She was so kind to me when I came back. You’re a lot like her, but at the same time different, I think.”

She leaves the room after that. She doesn’t come back. Yakov thought to just leave her alone, he can’t begin to imagine the thoughts going through her head, but he does know that it’s near time to pick Victor up from school and it looks like it’s up to him to remember.

He does walk through the house to track her down. She isn’t in the restroom, but he can hear her praying behind her bedroom door. And crying. He doesn’t bother her, he writes a quick note in case she comes out sometime soon and heads out for his car.

 

* * *

 

Things go quiet again.

Yakov is certified to teach.

He is certified to counsel.

He is soon to be completely ordained.

Victor turns ten, and that’s when it starts to go downhill.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> an actual conversation that happened:
> 
> friend: you know what this part reminds me of? that one mass where father mccarthy said that the rosary is the weapon, but he literally shouted "THE WEAPON" and scared that one altar boy who crashed into the eucharist.  
> me: ...didn't the altar catch fire?  
> friend: no that was the other time when he shouted "ALL SIN IS SIN"-  
> me: and chuko hit the candles cos that was the day he had his first joint! i remember now.  
> friend: yeah, that mass was lit.  
> me: i hate you so much.
> 
> (also sorry for taking so long in this update. i've been super involved with local activism lately and i've had this UNBEARABLE tooth pain that made it hard to focus on writing OTL [ ya'll have permission to yell at me if i start taking too long](curls-and-cats.tumblr.com)because apparently this has one more chapter before i get to the party fic where victor and yuuri actually first met)


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> an actual conversation that happened:
> 
> friend: dude, why does this family remind me of yours growin up?  
> me: *sweats* fffff- shit man i don't know.  
> friend: man... i wanna kick (cousin)'s ass.  
> me: she's pregnant.  
> friend: that's just unfortunate for humanity really.

Victor grows up to look more like his mother than his father.

It’s probably for the best, all things considered. Who knows what it might have done to Elena to have seen a smaller copy of her runaway husband growing up in front of her. The last thing Yakov would ever want is for Victor to end up being mistreated unintentionally because of it. He doesn’t like to think things like that, but there are just days where he doesn’t know what to expect from anybody.

Because with the reaction he gets after hearing news of his cousin Ivan’s current state, he just doesn’t know.

Ivan comes and goes as he pleases, and the last he heard from Katya was that he decided to travel to Oregon with his girlfriend and is living somewhere in a squatter’s den because he refuses to come back home after their breakup. Essentially, he’s homeless and would prefer to live out on the streets of some small town surrounded by woods than ask his family for anything.

“He’s probably doing drugs again,” she says, like the very idea is nothing.

Yakov can see why.

“Not even gonna pretend to be worried about your brother?” he asks her.

Katya only shrugs her shoulders and continues to brush through her daughter’s hair.

“It’s not my problem he can’t get it together,” she says and then turns her attention away from him. “Which headband do you want, Milochka?”

And thus, Katya continues to be his least favorite…

Yakov wonders if he should hold some of his influence over her and somehow force her to be a better person. It probably wouldn’t do much, but he does find himself in a position of power within his family because of his title. While he isn’t a priest just yet, he’s been able to hold and sway opinions over them all. Especially when it comes to Victor.

Victor, again, looks more like his mother, and with the way he likes to have his hair long, it is all the more obvious how soft his looks are.

“This boy needs a haircut,” their grandfather grouches at no one in particular during a Christmas with all of the family, but they all know who he means.

Elena, bless her, loves her son fiercely. The way she squares her shoulders back and looks at their grandfather in the eye is reminiscent to that day she dared speak back to him. She looks like her old self in that moment and Yakov is almost lost in it.

“He likes his hair the way it is,” she says. “And I like it, too.”

“He looks like you did at that age.”

“Well, he is _my_ son.”

The rest of the family is quiet in this back and forth. No one says anything, either in Elena’s defense or in their patriarch’s agreement. They only listen.

Except for Yakov.

He’s done enough of that.

“Thanks be to God for that,” he says. “Otherwise I couldn’t imagine how out of place all that hair would look if he had a face like your father’s.”

“What’s wrong with my face?” his uncle asks.

“Uncle, I have no doubt that no matter what decade, century, or era, we would have to find a way to keep your hair short, you would not be able to wear long hair.”

It’s a small jab, one that barely even qualifies as a joke, but it does ease up on the tension and gives them all a small laugh. It even does the job to keep their grandfather’s words at bay. It even goes on to his aunt reassuring Elena’s father that she would have found him attractive either way if they had lived back then and married him anyway, only to have his Aunt Anna mention she’s only saying that because both Nadejda and Elena look just like her for reassurance.

Another small round of laughter. Even his uncle laughs and says something along those same lines, counting his girls lucky to not inherit his strong, angular features. They soon forget about the slight insult made to Victor.

Although, looking at the boy now who has now focused his eyes on Yakov while the others go back to their conversations, he does wonder if he’s going to have to intervene on this boy’s behalf more than this one time.

 

* * *

 

It doesn’t take long for that thought to be answered. Only, it’s not just his grandfather that he has to deflect. It’s almost like a floodgate has been opened leaving Victor open to the criticism of this family.

“Victor doesn’t want to play with the other boys? Is that normal?’

“I always did prefer to read. I wasn’t fond of roughhousing either.”

“Victor is letting Mila put barrettes in his hair.”

“Good, it’s nice to see a young boy treat his cousins with manners and allow them to play the way they want instead of dominating over them.”

“Victor wanted me to paint his nails.”

“I have to deal with the Fathers complaining about all these boys getting in trouble for the same thing. I don’t understand the fads these kids do either, but in my opinion it isn’t hurting anyone. Oh, well.”

“His hair is getting very long.”

“As was our Lord and Savior’s, I’m sure, at some points in His life.”

“He likes to carry around that stuffed poodle a lot, doesn’t he?”

“Children do that. I’m pretty sure Georgi has been carrying that rabbit around for longer.”

“Have you noticed that all of Victor’s clothing usually have sequins.”

“I think he adds them on himself. It’s good to see creativity in a child. It helps the mind develop.”

There’s a brief moment when he remembers a girl in their small group in high school going on a long tirade about gender roles and riling up the others as well. He didn’t completely understand then, but he does now.

She’s right. This is ridiculous.

At least it’s only reduced to words that are only said when the boy or his mother are not around. Elena might still hold herself back in their grandfather’s presence but he isn’t too sure no one else will come out of a disagreement with her unharmed.

 

* * *

 

The terrible thing is that what Yakov doesn’t see is that before his grandfather passes he can’t always be there to protect Victor from the horrible things he says about his feminine face.

Or his hair.

Yakov isn’t there to catch the old man tug at Victor’s hair whenever he gets too close and tell him that he should cut it already if he doesn’t want that to happen. At first it was just a mild annoyance, but it began to grow more and more frequent that Victor learns to stay away from him entirely.

But again, Yakov isn’t always around, and he doesn’t know this.

So no, he doesn’t understand how in a room full of mourners, Victor is the only one to be so unaffected as the head of their family has died. Yakov figures that it wouldn’t affect him much since they were not close, but that’s as far as he really can tell.

 

* * *

 

 

“Vitya! Let’s go!”

He never intended to be as invested in Victor’s life as much as he is, but with Elena working her long hours and him being the only cousin that is both single with the most manageable spare time and also the most responsible, he ends up playing baby sitter a lot more than he ever imagined. If it weren’t for the fact that their parents are getting so much older and no longer able to care after children as they had before, he _might_ have been more annoyed with it, but to be honest Victor is a good kid.

For the most part.

Yakov is waiting by the opened front door, already ready to go and ready to lock up as soon as Victor stops primping and leaves his bedroom. He can finally hear Victor’s door open and close and he comes running through the house with his sweater tied around his waist and his backpack in hand. Yakov rolls his eyes and grabs at him before he’s able to run out the door. He grabs at the sweater and wrestles it over Victor’s head, even though he complains about it the whole time. It’s then that he notices the large red scrunchy with green and yellow beaded flowers holding his hair in a ponytail.

“Is that Mila’s hair band?” he asks. “What did I tell you about stealing?”

“She gave it to me!” Victor says.

“Victor.”

“She did! She said the red doesn’t show up in her hair, so she gave it to me.”

Yakov frowns down at him, not really knowing whether or not he’s telling the truth, but they don’t have the time for it anyway. They need to get going, and he says as much while ushering the boy out.

“We have to pick up Hector, too!”

Hector, as far as Yakov knows, is Victor’s first and only real friend.

He’s popular with the girls, that’s for sure, it isn’t odd to see Victor in the middle of a group of them on the playground either fixing up their hair or painting the nails on their right hands with precision they can’t do with their left even though painted nails are not allowed as part of the dress code. They don’t seem to be more than “playground friends”, since he doesn’t hear anything about them from the needless chatter he hears after classes have let out and he drives the boy home.

And as for the boys… Yakov suspects Victor is an anomaly to them. It would have been easy to pick on him for his appearance and the way he interacts with girls that is not like how _they_ would do it – throwing petty jabs and insults and then ignoring them once the attention they wanted is given. Victor is athletic though, he’s fast and has a good aim. He’s always picked first during their sports hour to either be captain or co-captain, so they always keep to his good side. But outside of that there isn’t any real comraderie as far as Yakov can tell.

With Hector though (a dark haired and dark eyed scrawny little boy whose gruff looking clothes look out of place standing next to Victor’s typically bright outfits) it’s different. Yakov has recently been the one to drive them both to and from school, even though his own duties don’t end ‘till an hour or so after their classes let out, but that doesn’t seem to bother them much at all.

They’re attached at the hip really; where ever one goes, the other is sure to follow.

Yakov doesn’t think too much of it. He hears the small complaints of what the two get up to: skipping their Catechism classes, throwing wads of toilet paper soaked in water and soap to get them to stick to the ceilings, trying to sneak Sister Julia’s class’ pet rabbit out on the fields to free it, but nothing is really outside of what any couple of ten-year-olds would do, really.

“Do you think mama would let Hector stay the night?” Victor asks him once they’re on their way. “I wanna ask him today so we can have a sleep over!”

“That’s really something you should have asked your mother before asking him,” he tells him, but it doesn’t do much to get Victor to change his mind.

“You can just call her and tell her, right? Yakov, you can do that, right? Oh! Just tell her it was your idea!”

“Victor, I’m not going to lie for you just so you don’t get into trouble with your mother. You need to start thinking things through before you do them.”

“You’d do it if you loved me.”

“You can’t trick me like that, try again.”

The rest of the drive is the same back and forth. Eventually, Yakov get Victor to agree to keep his invitation to himself until he’s able to get his mother’s permission. Not that it does much good, Victor ends up doing what he wants anyway and he’s treated to a backseat of two excited children planning their sleep over soon enough.

Yakov lets them.

He was serious, though. Victor can deal with his mother, because Yakov is not going to lie to Elena.

 

* * *

 

 

When it happens, Yakov is not the first to know. He hears the news from one of the altar boys that crashes into him.  He recognizes the mop of dirty blond curls and the face with large eyes and long lashes, but he doesn’t remember his name. He isn’t exactly given time to remember or let alone ask for a reminder because this boy is alert and out of breath and is telling him that Victor is in Father McCarthy’s office with Hector and they are both in so much trouble.

At first he thinks it’s the usual, but with the way this boy looks and with how out of breath he is from no doubt looking everywhere for Yakov, he realizes that it’s a more serious than that.

“What happened?” he asks, but he’s already moving in the direction of the Father’s office.

“I heard Sister Beatriz tell the fathers that she found them in the kindergarten playhouse and Hector was kissing Victor.”

Yakov stops and his blood runs cold. Not again, he thinks. No, this cannot happen again. He has seen his mother go through this ordeal, and he refuses to allow her son to do the same. Especially being so young. Jesus wept, Yakov cannot begin to understand how that child must be feeling now.

“Father McCarthy said to call in their parents,” the boy goes on. “I didn’t stay to hear anything else though. I came to look for you.”

Yakov turns to the boy, and really looks at him for the first time. He must be close to Victor’s age, and as much as Yakov would like to believe in the good of the altar boys considering they’re part of the Church, he remembers what most them are like at this age. Loud-mouthed and rebellious, and more prone to gossip than any of the girls he’s overheard. He doesn’t even know what is going to happen when he lets it slip out to his friends-

“I’m not going to tell anyone.”

Again, Yakov is surprised, and if he’s honest, a little doubtful. It must show on his face because it only presses the boy to keep talking.

“I won’t tell anyone,” the boy promises.

“Not even your friends?” Yakov can’t help but ask.

The boy shakes his head. “No. Please, believe me. I wouldn’t do that.”

There’s something very sincere in this child, and it has Yakov nod and tell him that he believes him. He tells him that he can go on his way, that he’ll deal with the Fathers alone and he has no reason to be reprimanded for eavesdropping on their conversation. The boy doesn’t reply to him, he only stands there and Yakov is actually the first to turn away and continue on.

“It’s only,” he hears the boy begins and stops once more. “It’s only… You always tell us that as Catholics we need to welcome everyone. That the word of God is for everyone. That there are some people that don’t think that, but they are wrong and they hurt others, and we should not follow their example. I-I know what some people think. I don’t want Victor _or_ Hector to be hurt because of it.”

Yakov smiles at him, he is grateful. He tells the boy that he’ll take care of it, and that he believes him. There isn’t anything else said to keep him from walking off now. He makes it to Father McCarthy’s office, and inside there is Victor is sitting on one side and his friend is sitting on the exact opposite of the room. The Father is not alone; in his office is Sister Beatriz and Father Marquez, who both look far most displeased then they have any real right to be.

“Yakov,” says Father McCarthy, “is there something we can help you with?”

Father McCarthy has been the head of this particular church since Yakov was young. He has had no complaints with the old priest, and has always known him to be just and fair minded. He can only hope that he really is, that he’ll brush off this matter as nothing but child’s play and leave it at that.

“I’m here for Victor,” Yakov says simply and leaves it at that.

Father Marquez is what many would be considered Father McCarthy’s right hand man, and Yakov is not fond of him. Not particularly. He’s too archaic, too literal, and has never once back downed on a “debate” he initiates when he seems to disagree with Yakov. Which is too often to even get into. It’s him that answer instead, and Yakov frowns at that.

“His mother has already been notified,” he says. “You don’t need to be here.”

The sound of a dismissal is clear in the way he speaks to him, and unfortunately for him, Yakov only takes that as a challenge to get his way.

“Elena is a single mother, and I doubt she will be able to receive a message that is not a complete emergency while working,” he says. “She may not even come until well after classes have let out, so, in the meantime, I will be here on Victor’s behalf. If I may, Father McCarthy.”

He leaves the decision up to the one in charge, and his heart thuds in his ears as he waits for the Father to say something. In the end, he is allowed to stay and he breathes easier. Less so, when neither child will say anything, even when Hector’s father shows up and the poor boy clams up even more.

Yakov has no idea what to do to make this situation better.  Not when he isn’t given anything to work with. Victor remains firm on what he says; that they decided to sneak into the kindergarten playground to get away from the noise of the older kids. He doesn’t mention anything else, and when Sister Beatriz presses him to say what they were doing inside, he bites at his bottom lip and keeps his eyes on the floor. Yakov keeps her at a distance, and every now and again has to remind her to not harass children in saying more than what they’re comfortable with.

With his father there, Hector doesn’t say anything at all. His knuckles are white and the poor boy looks like he’s on the verge of tears, and it isn’t until his father actually threatens him does Father McCarthy actually stop the interrogation.

The atmosphere is now tense, more so then it was before, that much is obvious. Still, nothing other than what Sister Beatriz has said is known and Father McCarthy does his best to reassure everyone in the room that there is no real punishment for what had happened, but that a lesson in what is appropriate should be learned from all this and perhaps discussed further in private. Hearing that makes him frown a little more, he doesn’t exactly trust _that_ wording, but he says nothing as they’re told it’d be best for both children to leave school early.

Yakov takes Victor’s hand and announces that he’ll be taking the boy home, and then leads him out the room. Victor doesn’t even fight him. He goes along with Yakov easily, only restrains a little when he turns his head back to look at his friend, who doesn’t even make eye contact with him.

He makes quick work of wiping at the tears going down his face, and Yakov lets him do it privately. He’s not going to call attention to them if that’s what Victor doesn’t want.

It’s not until they’re both seated in Yakov’s car that Victor actually say something.

“I was kissing him,” he says in a quiet voice.

Yakov nods, because there is no shock, because he already believed it. He knows what boys are like, the ones in these school when confronted with these accusations. They play it off, they get defensive, but they’re never silent. Not unless they’re afraid.

“I’m not angry,” Yakov tells him. “Not at you. You did nothing wrong.”

“But Sister Beatriz-”

“Sister Beatriz… Sister Beatriz, is your elder, and you should respect her for that much, but she says things that are not wholly true. Older people, Vitya… sometimes it’s because they’ve grown up in a different time where they were afraid, that they say things that hurt people. And they keep saying them because they’re still afraid. But you did nothing wrong. No matter what she told you.”

“She said I’m gonna have to do Confession, and I don’t wanna do that. It’s gonna be my first one, and I don’t wanna get into more trouble if they don’t like what I say, but I don’t wanna go to Hell.”

“So, then, tell me.”

“Can I do that?”

“Right here, like it’s a confessional. Tell me everything, and that’ll be your Confession.”

“You won’t hate me when I’m done?”

“Victor, I will never hate you. Please, believe me when I tell you that you can always come to me, if you ever need help.”

He holds his hand out for the boy to take, and holds it closer when Victor takes it and lets the tears fall quietly.

 

* * *

 

 

Victor gives his first real confession to Yakov.

There is no prayer recitation, and no penance given.

He tells Yakov everything. About how the playhouse was not their first kiss, and how Hector has always been the one to give them. About how they hold hands like the older girls and boys do in school, but always when they’re alone because Hector says they’ll get in trouble if anyone see them.

He guesses he was right. Yakov doesn’t reply to that.

He tells him that Hector has said to him, that he is the prettiest boy he has ever seen. He tells him that Hector says that he really likes Victor, that he says he might love him. Victor doesn’t know what that feels like. He loves his mother. He loves Yakov. He loves most of his cousins. But he doesn’t know what it means to love someone outside of his family, but if he could fall in love with someone he would want it to be with his best friend.

He cares for him. He laughs with him. He likes him; _he really does like him_. And that’s what’s got them in trouble. That’s what he decided to tell him today. That’s why they weren’t being careful like they usually are. Hector was happy, so Victor was happy. They didn’t hear the Sister coming in to clean up the mess the kindergarteners leave.

They made a mistake.

In the end, Victor asks Yakov again if he’s in trouble. Yakov tells him that he did nothing wrong in the eyes of God, because it is the truth and it’s easy to reassure him of that much.

Victor asks him if he’s in trouble with his mom.

He has a harder time answering that.

In the end, he tells him that his mother loves him. It’s the only reassurances he can give him.

 

* * *

 

 

There’s no hiding it from Elena. At first Yakov had left her a message saying that he’s taken care of Victor getting into trouble and intended to play if off like one of the other childish things the boys have done before. He does not, however, take into account how spiteful Sister Beatriz can be, and she had been the one to leave the first message. So, Elena does know and when they sit in her kitchen, she is quiet.

Yakov has told Victor to stay away from them during their conversation. He tells him again, that he’s done nothing wrong, only that the conversation with his mother… may not be so pleasant.

Unpleasant doesn’t accurately describe their conversation. Awkward, uncomfortable, those might be closer to the truth. It’s not one Yakov wants to have, but mostly because he doesn’t think that it should even be a conversation to begin with. He says as much.

Elena does not reply.

Yakov doesn’t try to press her into talking. He leans back into his own seat and waits for her to start talking. If she doesn’t, well…

“Did Victor talk to you about it?”

Yakvo’s eyes flicker over to her. She’s staring down at her hands

Yakov does not lie. He is careful though. He can’t be sure what his cousin is thinking, or predict her reactions. He does want Victor happy, he does want him safe.

“A little bit.”

“Is what he said the same as what the Sister’s message said?”

 “Not exactly.”

“Not exactly how?”

“Sister Beatriz is exaggerating. Hector did kiss Victor, a small peck, that much is true. Anything else, don’t believe that.”

Hearing that much seems to relieve Elena. She nods and taps her hand against the table top.

“That’s fine, then. We can fix that.”

Oh, Yakov doesn’t like the sound of that. “Lena-”

“Victor!” she calls out, and the boy slowly comes into the kitchen. She gives him a look up and down and her gaze settles on his long hair. After a moment, she says, “Come over here and sit down. I’m cutting your hair.”

Victor’s eyes go wide and his face falls. “What?!”

“That is completely unnecessary,” Yakov tries to tell her, “Lena-”

“Yakov,” she says, sternly. “Please, I’m talking to _my_ son.”

Victor’s eyes turn to Yakov with an unspeakable request for help, but it’s no use. He tries to reason with his cousin, he really does, but in the end, he holds Victor’s hand while Elena trims away at his hair. The long, pale, locks falls around them, and Yakov can’t help but feel like that really does tell a story that says so much more then what is happening now.

 

* * *

 

 

Hector is removed from the school by his own family.

Yakov never does learn what happens to him afterwards, but there is a time period where he includes the boy in his prayers and wishes for his safety.

(It’s uncertain to when he begins to think of him less and less, but it’s not that way for everyone, and though Victor will never admit it, he will always spare a passing thought for the boy he knew so long ago.)

(That’s just how it goes.)

 

* * *

 

 

Elena keeps Victor’s hair short.

(“You’re getting too big for long hair, after all. It’s time to start growing up.”)

His wardrobe starts changing as well.

(“You’re getting too old now to keep dressing like a child. It’s time to be more mature.”)

It’s not a sudden overnight transformation, but he soon looks nothing like the small child Yakov watched grow up.

With Hector gone, Yakov watches him more at school. Now that the sequins and everything else is gone the other boys start to approach him more, as if he’s more recognizable and approachable. The girls keep flocking to him, more than ever, really. They don’t ask him to plait their hair or paint their hands anymore though, they’re more shy now, more timid and look at him with a bit of awe in their eyes.

To anyone who doesn’t really know the boy, they most likely wouldn’t see anything different in him exactly, but when he goes home with Yakov, the smiles fall away and he stares out of the window silently.

Yakov misses the constant chatter, but he doesn’t know how to get it back.

 

* * *

 

 

“Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. It has been two days since my last confession.”

“What could possibly have happened in those two days?”

“I… I don’t think I’m honoring my mother.”

“…Why?”

“I’m just… I’m afraid to talk to her. I’m… afraid that I’ll say something wrong.”

“…Does something happen if you say something _wrong_?”

“No, not really. I think… sometimes, she looks at me and I feel like she’s trying to find something wrong with me. That’s what it feels like. Sometimes I think, that there is something there, but she can’t see it yet, and I dunno what it is, and I’m afraid that she’ll find it. One day.”

“What.. do you suppose would happen if she does find something?”

“…I don’t know. But, I don’t want to find out.”

“Vitya-”

“It’s not like I’m scared of her, Yakov. But… please, don’t tell her.”

“…I won’t tell her.”

 

* * *

 

 

Mila, out of all the children now, is the one closest to Victor.

At first, Yakov is wary, but as she gets older it’s clear that she is nothing like her mother, or her mother’s mother. Thank, God.

He doesn’t know what he would do with a smaller version of Katya hanging around him constantly, he really doesn’t.

As Mila grows, the more insistent she on hanging around her older cousin. If Katya has anything to say against it, Yakov doesn’t hear it. At some point he’s carting the 8 year-old along with them, and Victor is all the happier for it.

He really is, even though Mila is a full four years younger than him. Yakov rarely sees him happy among family, but with Mila around, he’s more inclined to smile sincerely. It’s not something that he doesn’t understand, when he thinks back on his memories growing up, he does feel that Victor and himself are the same in that regard. The only one he cared for… well, that had been Elena.

Yakov feels a bit of nostalgia watching them as Victor plaits her long hair and listens to Mila’s whines about how she hates it, she really wants to cut it short but her mother won’t let her. He hears Victor tell her that he’s jealous of her long hair, he really does miss his.

“When we get older, and we move out and stuff,” she says, “we’ll trade. You can have the long hair and I’ll have the short hair.”

“You want to live with me?” he asks.

“Who else am I gonna live with? Georgi says that it’s expensive to live in a city and that’s why they live so far away. Huh, Yakov, it’s expensive to live here and that’s why you don’t have a house?”

“I don’t need a house, Milochka,” he says over his paperwork. “I live alone.”

“My mom says it’s because you’re poor.”

Yakov pauses in his work and begins to think of a small lecture about modesty to guilt Katya into feeling bad for saying that, and in that time, he hears Victor say, “What’s gonna happen when you get married and need to move out? I’m gonna be all alone.”

“If I have to get married to a boy, then I don’t wanna. They’re all stupid, but not stupid like you, just plain ol’ stupid.”

“Not all boys are like that. Some of them are really nice.”

“Then we can trade again. You marry the boy, and I’ll marry the girl, and we can get a house like Gerorgi’s where it’s like two of them in one.”

Oh…

Yakov drops his work and looks at the two children. Victor too has stopped and is looking back and forth from Mila to Yakov. Mila, looks as if she has said nothing wrong at all and tugs her head forward to remind Victor what he was doing.

“You really wanna do that?” Victor asks her and goes back to finishing off the braid.

“I think it’s a good idea,” she says. “Huh, Yakov? It’s a good idea?”

“I.. Well, that sounds like a fair trade,” Yakov ends up saying. “If that’s how you want it.”

He watches the two, and Mila looks pleased with herself and even tells Victor again how smart she is for thinking all of this out before him. Victor, with one last look to Yakov tells her that, yes, she is so smart for thinking that.

He doesn’t know if this is a _thing_ or if it’s just a child saying things that make sense to her at the time. Either way, he’s going to keep an eye on Mila.

He goes back to his work with a bit of a sigh. If it wasn’t enough to look after Victor, now he has to look after Mila as she grows older. He doesn’t recall ever agreeing to this.

How many more children is he going to end up being a surrogate parent to?

(The answer is four total. There comes a time in the distant future where not only is Victor living with him, but Mila and one of the younger ones, Yuri, as well. Georgi joins them for not the same reasons, but he’s closer to these three than any others and so he ends up on Yakov’s living room floor as they figure out what they’re going to do.)

(It’s not like he _has_ to take them in, but he honestly can’t imagine doing anything else.)

 

* * *

 

 

When Yakov learns of an opening at St Agatha’s, he jumps at the opportunity.

It’s a simple conclusion for him to mandate services at the school’s chapel rather than fight through the ranks of the church. It would be better, he thinks in a voice that reminds him of Lilia’s, that way he gets a hold of younger minds to influence rather the ones that are set in their ways because they are older.

The position comes with administration duties rather educational ones, but that’s fine. It’s not teaching exactly, but he’s given enough lessons on transubstantiation to last him for some time.

“Your mother must be thrilled,” Elena says once he’s given the job. “You finally got into St Agatha’s.”

She says it with a bit of a laugh, and Yakov can’t help but join her. It’s so like a conversation that he remembers having long ago, and not far from the truth. His mother had been near tears when he let her know, as dramatic as that is, but it’s true.

“She’s happy,” is what he says. “My father is proud.”

“I’m sure they are. Say, Yasha, will you do me a favor when you’re there?”

Elena’s tone is a little more on the serious side, and Yakov immediately tells her that of course she can. He’ll help her in any way possible.

“I know Victor still has a year to go before he’s accepted to St Agatha’s,” she says, “but I know it’s an all-boy school, and… Well, I went to Rosary and I know how a non-coed school can be, will you look after him there?”

“I’m not sure what it is you’re asking me to do.”

“I don’t want another ‘Hector Incident’,” she says, clearly. “If we can just keep that from happening all together, I just feel like it would be a lot easier for him to.. to just graduate and become an adult. Like everyone else.”

If he isn’t so exasperated by her behavior, Yakov might have asked if that’s what she believed would have happened to her if she hadn’t allowed herself to fall in love at a young age. It might have started an argument, but maybe some progress would have been made here.

But he doesn’t. Yakov, who is turning his head aside so she isn’t able to see him roll his eyes upwards at her ‘Like everyone else.’ comment, is quick to just say something so that this conversation will end.

“I’m going to look after him, Lenochka,” he tells her. “Don’t worry about that.”

She looks relieved, and Yakov feels a little guilty for having her believe the slight twist in his meaning.

Only a little though. He’s still not lying.

He will look after him, even if it’s not in the way she thinks.

 

* * *

 

 

Yakov is introduced to Christophe Giacometti shortly after Victor begins his second year at St Agatha’s, and it’s almost like history repeating itself.

While Victor may be considered to be a popular boy, he keeps mostly to himself and doesn’t really socialize with the other students. He doesn’t know what he gets up to during their free time, but he does know that he never mentions an actual friend until he asks Yakov if they can give Chris a ride after school.

There’s something familiar about the boy sitting in his backseat though, but he can’t quite put his finger on it.

“I was an altar boy at Our Lady for a while,” Chris tells him when he finally mentions it. “I went to school there too, but only for elementary, and not for very long. I moved with my mother down to San Diego after her divorce. I moved back up here to live with my dad now.”

He gets a sudden flashback to a younger and smaller Christophe Giacometti. Tiny, with hair that is brighter than the dark, dirty, blond locks he has now and large doe eyes and he remembers. He’s the one that overheard that conversation that day and came to get Yakov for Victor.

Yakov catches Chris’ eye in his rearview mirror and the boy smiles in return. It’s a quick and silent exchange or recognition, one that Victor doesn’t pick up on because he goes on to ask Chris where they’re dropping him off.

“My girlfriend’s,” he says. “We’ve only been dating for a few weeks, but she wants me to meet her parents and have dinner with them. I figured if I went in my uniform I’d make a good impression since she goes to Rosary.”

Yakov definitely likes Chris. He thinks him mild-mannered and considerate. A perfect influence for Victor, really.

He changes his mind a few months later when Christophe and his girlfriend apparently break up and in _that_ aftermath there is a long string of schoolboys waiting to confess with his name on their lips.

Now, as uncomfortable as it is, and he really doesn’t want another child to adopt, he has to talk to Chris about this, at least to make sure that he’s being safe about things.

He asks Victor once if they’re involved with each other and that was an even more uncomfortable conversation that they both end with quick answers and a solid, “No, we’re not. Definitely not.”

Yakov believes him. But he leaves a pamphlet about safe sex in his backpack anyway.

Victor never mentions it, and Yakov never brings it up.

 

* * *

 

 

Yakov first hears the name Yuuri when Victor is 16. He’s treated to a surprise visit from Victor in his office after the last class of the day has let out and even then, it’s a short one.

“I don’t need a ride home!” is what he says with the largest smile Yakov has ever seen.

“Why not?” He knows he doesn’t really have a reason to ask, Victor is old enough to not need him chaperoning his every move, but he can’t help himself. He’s gotten used to it, after all.

“I’m walking home with a friend!”

If Victor was anyone else, he would have just accepted it like that and told him to be careful on the his way, but Victor is the boy he’s known to not just make friends easily, and again, Yakov finds himself asking without thinking, “Which friend?”

And it’s like a floodgate opens.

“His name is Yuuri!” Victor tells him, excitedly, and dear God, there are little hearts in his eyes. He whips out his phone and presses it into Yakov’s face until the man sees nothing but tiny gallery pictures of a round faced Japanese boy. “Lookit him, isn’t he the cutest boy you’ve ever seen?! Of course, he is! I’ve never seen anyone more perfect. I know, I know, it’s a lot to take in, but lookit him!”

Oh…

It was always inevitable, really. Victor eventually, was going to fall for someone, and even though for awhile there Yakov wasn’t sure what kind of person that someone was going to be, he has always prepared himself for this. For better, or for worse, he’s not gonna stop this from happening, but he does need to know a little more.

“Are… Are you two dating?”

Victor pulls back, and it’s like he’s suddenly realizing what he’s been saying. He looks vaguely uncomfortable and draws his attention to the screen of his phone.

“Would you be disappointed if we were?” Victor ends up asking in turn.

“I don’t see a reason why I would have to be.”

“I just… know that some people would be.”

The ‘some people’ go unnamed, but they both know who he means.

“Well, it’s not the business of ‘some people’. Your life is your own. Love who you will.”

Victor doesn’t look at him, but he does smile down and scroll through all the photos he’s taken.

“We’re not dating,” he says. “But I kinda want to. Kinda, really want to.”

“If that boy has any common sense, he’ll steer clear from you,” Yakov teases and musses the top of Victor’s hair.

For the most part, Yakov knows giving Victor this reassurance is the only right thing to do. But when the time comes where the boy ends up giving him his confessions because he keeps pissing off his professors and he makes Yakov literally ask God, “ _Why?_ ”, he wonders if he should have told him something that would make him want to keep certain things _to himself_.

He loses track over how many times he has to cut Victor off before he makes a dirty joke of some kind, and each time he scolds himself for ever thinking Christophe Giacometti would have been a good influence.

 

* * *

 

 

The months pass on in this way, with only one incident that nearly breaks the hearts of many people involved.

And though Yakov is involved, it’s not his story to tell.

But it’s also a story for another day.

 

* * *

 

 

The Katsuki boy, is a good kid. For as much as he knows.

Yakov does not hear about any type of misbehavior. He keeps his head down, does his work, and overall blends in with all the other boys in their pressed uniforms. However, there must be _something_ fierce inside of him, if the way he had handled _that_ particular situation three months ago the way he had says anything about it. Even now, sitting in Yakov’s office, he looks determined to not cower down in front of Yakov’s anger.

“I don’t want to know what you two were doing in that booth,” Yakov says. “I don’t need to know. Unless I have the misfortune of being the one to oversee the Confession I am assigning the both of you to do after classes and before detention.”

“We weren’t doing anything,” says Yuuri.

“Well, we were doing a _little_ something,” Victor says.

“Okay,” Yuuri sighs and rolls his eyes. “We were doing something, but it wasn’t anything.. I don’t know, sexual.”

“Well, I was a little hard.”

“I know, I felt it, and I don't know why. All I did was kiss you.”

“I don’t need to hear this!” Yakov nearly bellows and slams his hands down on his desk. “I don’t care- Well, no, I _do_ care about what the two of you do outside of school, but not so much as what you’re doing _in_ school, and finding the two of you in a _confessional_ of all places-? Victor, I know you were raised to be more respectful than that!”

“We didn’t mean to get caught in there,” Victor tells him. “We were trying to sneak out of school all together and ducked into the chapel and just ended up in there.”

Yakov gives him a hard look. “I don’t know how you thought that would be better, I really don’t.”

“Father, it’s not Victor’s fault,” says Yuuri. “He was just trying to help me.”

Yakov turns his glare towards Yuuri and the boy falters for a second before his back straightens out.

“I was getting anxious about my Music Appreciation presentation,” he says. “I know, it’s not that big of a deal, it happens to everyone, but Victor wanted to get me out of it, and I should have said no, but I let him anyway. So, we tried to sneak out during lunch, and that… well, that didn’t work.”

Yakov has hears Victor talk endlessly about Yuuri’s anxiety and how he can work himself up, so Yakov lets it slide. He lectures them, still, because even if it’s well-meaning, the solution wasn’t exactly practical. They’re both oh-so very lucky that Yakov had been the one to find them and not someone else.

“Victor,” he says with a bit of a resigned sigh, “you are literally one month away from graduating. Is there any way I can ensure that you will not get into any more trouble?”

“Maybe,” Victor shrugs. “But, I mean, we’ve come this far, I don’t see the point in stopping now.”

“Victor,” Yuuri starts and nudges at him. “Be serious.”

“I am wild!”

Yuuri ends up snorting out a laugh that he tries to smother with his hands, but that only has Victor’s heart eyes grow larger and before Yakov can stop him, he’s climbing into Yuuri’s chair to hug him and bury his face in the crook of his neck.

“You’re so cute,” he hears him mutter and the poor Katsuki boy grows redder by the minute.

This is when Yakov feels like he’s had enough. There is no talking to them once Victor gets like this; it has been a long three months of seeing this behavior and Yakov knows when he’s beat.

He’s getting too old for this.

“I’ll drop the mandated Confession,” he says. “But you’re both serving detention in the chapel after school. You’re both going to reorganize the booklets for the pews, and if I catch wind of any fooling around, there will be actual Hell to pay.”

“Don’t worry,” Victor tells him, “you won’t catch us.”

“Oh my- Thank you, Father Feltsman,” says Yuuri. “For being so kind.”

“Lord knows I’m not doing anyone a favor here by giving the two of you any kind of leniency,” Yakov says gruffly. “Get him out of here.”

Yuuri thanks him again, and without any real trouble, he gets Victor to climb off of his lap and the two leave his room hand-in-hand. He doesn’t hear what Victor tells Yuuri once they’re outside, he’s only able to see his lips move against the other’s ear in a whisper that has Yuuri smiling before the door closes behind them.

Part of him doesn’t even want to know, because honestly, it could have been anything knowing these lovesick fools. Still, he thinks to himself, to see them at each other’s side is a wonder and he wouldn’t have it any other way.

Yakov smiles. It’s a small one, that no one else is able to see in the privacy of his office, but it’s there.

He shuffles the files around on his desk, picks one up, and goes back to work.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this took so long, it's been like what, two months?? yeah, i kept having a hard time writing cos i kept triggering myself a little through part of it and the funny thing was that i didn't even realize what was happening until is suddenly dawned on me halfway through making roses for some cupcakes and boy was that a fun shift lmaoo
> 
> anyway, i had to work through that but i'm good now. 
> 
> i'm just excited that i get to finish writing their meet-cute now! i'm 5k words in and might even make a playlist for it, we'll see.

**Author's Note:**

> a looooong time ago, it was Lent and i was fasting and a girl asked me "how do you justify what the church teaches when you are who you are?" and all i could say was "all jesus ever said was to not be a dick."


End file.
